


You Mean More To Me Than Any Song

by keeprunning



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Band Break Up, Idiots in Love, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, References to Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2207178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeprunning/pseuds/keeprunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Nightmares?" he says, and his voice inflects a question, but it isn't one. Frankie always knows, just <i>knows</i>,  right down to plurality</p><p>"I died and you got really tattooed."</p><p>There's a pause and then: "In that order?"</p><p>(In which Gerard tries to break up with Frank for his own good and it really, <i>really</i> sucks.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Mean More To Me Than Any Song

Frank is so tattooed now. Gerard's always worshiped his ink - the stories, the pain, the way Frank's mapped out on his fucking _flesh_ for the whole world to see - but lately he's grown attached the the brief snatches of bare skin. Gerard goes to sleep one night with Frank's adorned fingers twisted up in his pale ones and has a dream that he wakes up one morning and Frank is so tattooed that he can't find Frank face underneath the designs. It's fucking terrible - he screams and wails and he can't cry, but the Lady of Sorrows on Frank's arm is _weeping_.

That night, Gerard also dreams that he's high again; that he sneaks away from Brian and everybody and dies alone in an empty hotel bathtub, tap dripping onto his bruised legs and the laugh track from a late night talk show drifting through the crack between the door and the tile. He can't remember ever really thinking about it, but he guesses he kind of expects Heaven to be like an airport arrivals gate of family and friends. What it ends up being is a show after the kids have gone home, yellow house lights and bloody, sweaty floor. The room feels dangerous, in the pit-of-your-stomach place that always acts up when you know something is about to jump out at you in a video game. Even just breathing makes the room echo in a way that makes him want to throw up. A bartender wipes the same spot on the bar, over and over, and Gerard just stares like, _I slit my wrists for this?_

He wakes up in Frank's bunk. He's taking up the whole fucking thing, and Frank is half off the edge. It's a departure, because Frank is usually all limbs. Tonight he's wide-eyed and panicked, shaking Gerard by the shoulders. He registers that Gerard is awake, and stops abruptly. 

"Nightmares?" he says, and his voice inflects a question, but it isn't one. Frankie always knows, just _knows_ , right down to plurality.

"I died and you got really tattooed."

There's a pause and then: "In that order?"

Frank makes coffee (real coffee, not that Tassimo-imposter-bullshit) and they drink it and chain-smoke in the bathroom of the tour bus even though they're going to catch hell for it tomorrow.

"You are my best friend, and my favourite person that's ever existed, and I love you," Frank tells him, touches his forehead against Gerard's and looks imploringly at him. "More than anything. More than life."

"More than punk rock?" he breathes. Gerard's kidding, kind of, but Frank is dead serious.

"More than Black Flag," he vows, and kisses him with smoke still in his mouth.

Frank tells inane stories until Gerard's mind shuts up enough for him to sit still. He's only shaking a little by the time he falls asleep to the forward motion of the bus and Frank's level breathing, thinking that there's no way things will stay this good.

\---

 

The real tragedy of Gerard is that his doomsday predictions almost always come true.

The band is done within a week of him and Frank. 

This is how him and Frank end: 

Frank is shirtless, plucking at a bass guitar that's not strictly in tune. He's sitting on the floor, leaning his back against the couch that Gerard is laying on. Gerard doesn't have a lot of hobbies like that, things he can just pick up and _do_ without completely losing himself in them, so from a young age he's spent a lot of time in his own head. He's smoking and letting Frank's off-key chords direct his thoughts and it's 4 am and they have press to do tomorrow, but Gerard can't help himself. He just goes:

"I was thinking about a double-suicide."

Frank cuts off quickly, weirdly, and the silence is suddenly very close in Gerard's ears. There's this big, poignant pause before Frank twists around - fast, really fast, but that's just Frank - and scrunches up his face in a way that just about breaks Gerard's heart right there. "Thinking _what_ about a double-suicide?" 

He smiles a little, closes his eyes. "Just that it's kind of romantic, you know? Right?"

He hears Frank crawl up the couch. He rearranges Gerard a little bit so he can stretch out, half on top of and half beside him. When he sneaks a look, Frank's got his discarded shirt draped over his face. The fabric dips in when he inhales and pillows out when he breathes out, all long-suffering.

"Gee, there is _nothing_ romantic about a double-suicide. You fuck-up," he adds, kind of affectionately.

"That's the romantic part."

There's another silence. Frank slides the shirt away and gets himself a cigarette and uses his cherry to light another one for Gerard. They lay there in hazy quiet, pressed together heads, shoulders, knees and toes.

Then Gerard says, "I was thinking, maybe I'll ask Lindsey to marry me." He wasn't thinking that, actually, and he knows he won't, but he thinks maybe it would be better for Frank if there was … not a scapegoat, per se, but a _reason_ , at least. One Frank would understand, anyway. One he might respect.

All he says is, "Oh."

"Yeah."

Frank doesn't press him further, doesn't ask why, or when. He just slowly rolls over, and in the small space of the couch, the manoeuvre lands him directly on top of Gerard. He plays with Gerard's hair, cups around the shell of Gerard's ear, kisses his way down Gerard's jaw and licks at the base of his neck. With his other hand, he draws lines all over Gerard's face, his shoulders, his thighs. When Frank finally kisses him full on the lips, Gerard feels like his heart is going to come out through his throat and into Frank's warm mouth.

"Do you love her?" Frank finally says, very quietly, into Gerard's shoulder.

"Yes," says Gerard, without hesitation, because he does, if not in the way Frank's asking about.

Of course, Frank calls him on it. "Like you love me?" he challenges.

Gerard doesn't love _anything_ like he loves Frank, so he stays quiet.

"Why are you doing this?" Frank finally whispers into the dark.

"Because you are my best friend, and because I love you, and because I ruin things," Gerard says transparently, sort of before he can stop himself.

"And you think you're gonna ruin me? Us?"

"I don't think that," Gerard says, barely audible. "I _know_ that."

"That's fucking _cowardly_ ," Frank spits.

They deuce the next cigarette, and when it dies they sit silently. Gerard thinks of about a million things to say; things to make it better, things to put a smile back on Frank's face and take away the _stabbing_ feeling in his chest, but he doesn't say any of them. Light starts slanting in through the blinds and Frank gets up, leaves.

Doesn't come back.

Gerard's phone buzzes - he can't stand to have a ringtone - and it flashes Frank's name bright into the dark room.

"I'm smoking in front of the hotel," says Frank. "This is the part where you come running after me and fight for me."

"I can't, Frankie," Gerard makes himself say, jaw aching with the effort of it.

"Huh. So, you mean it, then? You really want us to be over?"

That is not at all what Gerard wants, not really, but it's what has to be done. He tells Frank yes, and gets promptly hung up on.

Doing the right thing, Gerard thinks, fucking _sucks._

\---

This is how the band ends:

They're having a smoke break outside the shitty little studio they've been trying to patch together a record in, and Gerard realizes that the band that was once his life-force is dead. Dead like the Helena in the music video, only MyChem isn't going to revive for a sick dance number. (He would laugh at that thought, he really would, if he didn't feel acid beneath his skin and a sinking in his chest.)

It's been slowly dying, of course. Ray stopped writing riffs like, months ago, and they played this one show in Hoboken where Frank actually _punched Gerard in the face_ and later claimed it was all stage, even though they played _Not Okay_ and Frank had looked Gerard in the eye and screamed _Lie to Me!_ instead of _Trust me!_ Then he kicked over Gerard's mike stand a total of nineteen times before Gerard just left it down, and if Gerard has ever seen an appropriate occasion to use the word _vendetta,_ , it's for what Frank has against him.

Mikey copes by getting fucking _married,_ and Gerard doesn't. Doesn't even ask, and no one ever mentions it again. Lindsey still answers when he calls at three a.m. from too-big hotel rooms and sends him stupid memes she finds on the internet at intervals throughout the day, the best best friend he could ever ask for (except Frank, but Frank's always meant something so _big_ to him that saying best friend seemed to trivialize it.)

It's 5 a.m., (like _MCR5, get it, ha-ha, Gerard's fucking brain_ ). Frankie and Gerard are bookending the group, as far away from each other as possible. Mikey's face down, sprawled out on the pavement and clicking at his phone, Ray looking nervously back and forth, drumming erratically on his knee-caps.

"I don't think we can make this record," Gerard finally says. He sucks hard on his cigarette, and that's really all he does now. Smoke, that is. He doesn't drink or snort or swallow any pills anymore - not even Advil - and yes, he's very, very glad that he'll fucking live past thirty-seven now, or whatever, but he hasn't written a good song since he got clean. Well - besides the thing that happened tonight. Besides _Fake Your Death_ , and now that he's heard it, altogether and complete like that, he wants to throw up. It's so fucking obvious. He had been writing a eulogy for his own fucking band without even realizing it. The playback ends in the studio and he thinks, _what the fuck am I doing here?_ It's not like Frank even speaks to him either, except in insults, and he wonders if maybe there's some big cosmic correlation - like maybe he's _supposed_ to be a junkie and he's fucking everything up by being sober.

"Gee…" Mikey says, like a warning, so of course he cements it.

"I _know_ we can't make this record. Or I can't, at least."

"Can't or won't?" shoots Frankie from the shadows, venom in his tone worse than an actual punch to the gut. Worse than that punch to the face.

"Fuck you, Frank," he says, without feeling.

"Yeah, we've been there. Didn't end so well." He laughs, and it slices flesh.

There's a band-wide brawl on the sidewalk. It's pretty fucking out-and-out too; art fag or no, Gerard is from New Jersey (not that he's _strong_ , just _stubborn_ ), and Frank's always been tough, to make up for his size. Mikey side-steps the whole thing, arms up and palms spread, like he did it in surprise and then froze. Ray yells for them to quit, tries to break it up, and then joins in, and Gerard kind of thinks he's trying to keep it even.

The second biggest tragedy of Gerard is that he is always the first to walk away. So he does, dusting off his (Frank's, borrowed, _fuck_ ) pants.

"This band is fucking done."

 

\---

Of course, they have a string of shows to play after that - things they've committed to already, and even if they fucking hated each other, they all care about the fans too damn much to let them down. But that's the weirdest thing about the break-up. Gerard doesn't hate anyone in the band - it just feels like time. It's surreal how normal the whole thing feels. He pins it on the fact that they were friends first, after all - little hoodrats in Suburgatory. They all still hang out. Gerard spends most of his time at Mikey's, getting chastised for getting paint on Mikey's new ikea table, and Ray still comes over and they play D&D (Mikey is teaching his new wife.) Life goes on as usual, except Frank and Gerard aren't fucking, or seeing each other at all off-stage, and no-one discusses the future of the band.

The last show they play is some artsy, mini-festival thing that Gerard would've totally gotten off on, in other circumstances, in this dark little club on Sunset that totally used to be a supermarket. Like, he's pretty sure he's bought ramen there before. After the the encore, they rush into the wings like always. Usually there's post-show chatter, hugs and jokes and _dude, you fucked up the bridge!_ yelled affectionately. Tonight they all just stand in an awkward semi-circle, listening to the chatting grow dimmer and dimmer as the kids finally give up and leave. No one says a thing. They're all so aware that this is it. Twelve years, countless tours… Songs, and fights, sweat and tears, and all that they've fucking been through together is over the minute they walk off the stage. Eyes dart, pulses quicken. No-one wants to leave first. It's over already, but no-one wants to be the one to officially _end_ it.

Ray scratches at his hair, and Mikey keeps opening and closing his mouth like he's going to catch the right words in the air. Frank's guitar hangs lifelessly in front of him, and something about that makes Gerard want to hit something.

"Well," Bob says, after an eternity, like clearing his throat. _Bob_ , Gerard thinks, and that's when his throat catches. _Bob, back for the last show. The_ last _show_ He tries to echo, tries to do _something_ other than stand there like a retarded deer, but he's sang his voice right out.

"Yeah," agrees Ray likably. Mikey taps his nose.

"Well, _yeah_ ," Frank spits like the pissed-off teenager he's never really grown out of being. He shrugs out of his guitar like it's a jacket and marches into the bowels of the stage. Gerard watches his back until it's eaten up by the blackness. The slamming of a door a few seconds after punctuates it: Frank's actually gone. He actually left, and Gerard isn't even really allowed to be upset, because it's exactly what he wanted.

Wants. 

Whatever.

The rest of the band departs one by one, less dramatically, until it's just Gerard and the equipment, a few roadies shuffling ( _hovering_ ) anxiously around the periphery. Gerard collapses in stages, hits the ground and stays there until Lindsey, of all people, shows up at four a.m. She hauls Gerard up in a practiced way, except this time he's not high, he's heartbroken, and he kind of sobs all over her jacket in the parking lot. Lindsey has got a good fucking soul. That's why Gerard started loving her in the first place. He starts to say this, and ends up just crying more. When he finally gets it together, feeling strung out and sick but not leaking from the eyes anymore, they sit in her car, smoking. Gerard digs a sharpie out from the glovebox. 

_RUN AWAY WITH ME_ he writes on his arm, like old times, and holds it up to her.

She shakes her head sadly and tugs his arm down. "I'm not the one you should be asking, Gee."

She drives him home, and even though it's raining she takes the long way, concentrating on her left hand turns and looking kind of aged by the whole experience. Gerard feels fucking terrible - wants to tell her _sorry_ and _you weren't a back up plan_ and he realizes it's the same analogy as with the band - _love_ but not _in love_. It's like his whole fucking life has just paled, in comparison.

_To Frank_ , he finishes the thought, and he feels his eyes well up again. _In comparison to Frank._

Lindsey turns down the radio. He decides she must kind of get it already, for her to be here, so he keeps the fuck quiet. He watches her drive for a long time, until she catches him at it, and then he looks down at his hands. They're folded in his hands, shaking, and bleeding from some unfelt wound, and everything is awful. He knocks his forehead against the cool window, and his eyes slip closed.

\---

He sits on his couch for… Well, he doesn't actually know how long. A long fucking time, because the world gets dark and gets light and starts to get dark again before he stirs.

Gerard has no groceries. He also has no clean clothes. He does have running water, but has neither energy nor desire to shower. He spends the first day mostly wandering around. His house is modest - a single level, double bedroom affair - but it suddenly seems like a vast amount of space for one person. He does laps from the kitchen, to the living room, to the room where he keeps all his painting stuff, to his bedroom, and back. It seems like a fucking journey each time, and he keeps running into little things that belong to Frank. A crumpled up shirt on the bathroom tile, a coffee mug that says _Moulin Rouge sucks dick_ , a pack of smokes. All this stupid little gravemarkers that stab at him. He goes to bed at four o'clock because he can't think of any real reason to stay awake. He lays in the dark for a long time, staring at Frank's name in his phone until his eyes hurt. He doesn't call. 

Two days after that, they're on television. His mom calls to tell him, says MTV is losing it's fucking shit (exact words, _Donna Way, everybody_ ). The channel keeps showing fan-shot footage of the weird Grocery Store show, turning an average gig into something mystic and monumental to be written in rock n' roll history books. There's some bullshit statement from the label that was likely written by like, seven people in suits around an ostentatious oak table, but has all their names at the bottom anyway. They're in a weird order: Ray and Bob in the middle, Frank at the Front and Gerard at the end, like even their names couldn't get far enough away from each other. They say _Mike_ instead of _Mikey_ and Gerard feels weirdly defensive about that. It denies a break-up to the end; says _hiatus_ and _break_ and implies the fuck out of a reunion - but never says it's over. He can't decide if he likes that or hates that.

Gerard records the segment. 

He spends the rest of the day dry-heaving in same fucking bathroom where he keeps all his _Kerrang!_ awards.

 

\---

He stays at home for three weeks before Ray shows up, waving his arms around and making his hair bounce. He throws Gerard into the shower, and when Gerard emerges clothes are laid out for him on the bed like he's a fucking five year old. He resents that, but Ray does put together a pretty mean outfit, so he puts it on and makes himself feel better about it by flipping Ray off when he says Gerard looks nice. Ray drives, chatting happily about the adventures of like, his neighbours golden retrievers or his niece (it's hard to tell; stories about the two are often quite similar in arch.) Gerard wears sunglasses and hunches down in his seat.

It's so bright, and so hot, and they sit on the patio of some place totally _meant_ for alcohol consumption, but Ray tells him it's 11 am and therefore too early for beer. He also reminds Gerard he is _sober_ in a way that Gerard know is trying to come off casually, but sets him on edge all the same. Ray orders a juice, some stupid L.A. kale/grass/carrot terrible-tasting potion. Gerard orders nothing in protest, but the waiter still brings him a water.

"You can't do this. You can't go catatonic and go in to mourning or whatever. You're the one who didn't want to be in the band anymore."

"I love the band. That's why I did that. I didn't want to… watch it decay."

"You were worried about it getting fucked up in the future, so you thought you would save us all the trouble by fucking it up now?" Ray glares, hair seeming even larger than usual, but Gerard glares back and finally Ray shakes the stern face off and then sighs and gets to his real point: "And Frank?"

"Frank will be fine." Frank is from Jersey. Frank is always fine. It's like his superpower.

"Frank is miserable. Frank is heartbroken. He's not _eating_ "

"Frank never eats," he counters.

Ray actually looks mad, which is really a sight to see. A muscle works in his jaw for a long time, and his nostrils flare out. Gerard is actually a little scared. His octave is pitched when he finally says, "Look, I just don't get it, okay? You love Frank more than fucking anything. That's obvious."

He sighs, feels like he's been over this a thousand times, even though he knows it was just with himself.

" _Exactly,_ " he says. 

\---

After, Ray takes him shopping, muttering darkly about grown men not being able to look after themselves. He leaves Gerard in pursuit of Pop Tarts, and that's when MTV calls him. He picks up, even though It's annoying, because he's literally in the frozen aisle at the grocery store, all hunched into his sweater and trying to act inconspicuous, and now this girl is asking him about charts and box sets and he's totally about to get found out. It's the same girl she always deals with - he's an asshole, he can never remember if it's Makayla or Mckenna - and Gerard is nice. A lot nicer than he feels like being, for damn sure, but he answers all her questions as matter-of-factly, until she she says _Frank._

"There's reports of Frank playing in another band. I mean, he hasn't answered me. But apparently he's working with your drummer, and they're uh-," she pauses like she's consulting something. "Frnk Iero and the Cellabration? Without the vowels in 'Frank.'"

"Okay," Gerard says, but that's not okay, not really. His own fucking song starts playing from the the bowels of his brain and he braces himself on the freezer door, because Gerard is _not o-fucking-kay_. The freezer door is cold as fuck but the floor is suddenly, violently, tilting up at a crazy angle towards him and he needs something solid to keep him up. There's a fucking fist down his throat, and his thoughts are strangely blank. Nothing is formed past pure _feeling._ Because Frank moving on, and Frank being happy? Yes, definitely the goal. Just, somehow, Gerard had never considered him playing in another band. Never imagined Frank pacing around another band's stage, yelling into another singer's mic, grabbing another singers hair and kissing their face while they were trying to get the motherfucking chorus out. He feels worse than if she had told him Frank was fucking his way through the scene. 

It's just more _personal,_ somehow.

"Can I get a comment on that?" she's asking, even though Gerard is going to pass out in Whole fucking Foods.

"Um. I. Yeah - I'm happy for Frankie. Uh, Frank. If you quote that, please write 'Frank.'" He hangs up before he can sound any more pathetic.

He immediately calls Frank. Dials before he really realizes what he's doing, like on instinct, and it's too late to stop and then he's answering.

"Hi," Frankie/Frank says, all cautious.

"Uhhhh," he flounders. "Um, fuck. Fuck, Frank."

"You called to swear at me?" He doesn't even sound mad, just confused - _wary_ -, and that infuriates him more, somehow, even though he knows he is in the wrong, and he hurt Frank first. He can't help it. He's just _hurt_ , regardless.

"Mikey says maybe you need to eat some food or whatever," and then, before he can stop himself, "You know. Keep the strength up for your new band or what-the-fuck-ever."

"Gee-" Gerard hangs up with as much venom as is possible on a touch screen.

 

\---

Gerard drinks. He goes to the corner store and buys Colt 45 and PBR, because if he's gonna do this, he's gonna _do this_. Then he drinks for two days and spends the third one face-down on the bathroom tile thinking about how much he fucking sucks and how hard he's worked for his sobriety and how hard he's going to have to work again, now. He calls Brian who comes over, even though they're not as such speaking, and they talk about the Big Book and the Twelve Steps and the Higher Powers while Gerard is still hungover enough to appreciate the gravity of it all. When he can move again, Brian makes him shower, comb his fucking hair, dress in actual clean clothes and go for a walk. It's such a trivial thing, but the the sun is setting and slanting orange across the world, and the park by Gerard's house becomes poetry.

Gerard stays out for three hours in which he does not in any way, shape, or form crave a drink. Then he goes home and sits down at his piano. He writes the first song he has in a year.

After that, the walks kind of become a thing, and Gerard finds himself setting out every day around sunset. He goes somewhere different every time, choosing left, right, left turns on instinct. He's been in Los Angeles for two years, but all he's really seen is the insides of studios, venues, Starbucks cafes, and the scenery on the way. He feels compelled, now, to rectify that.

There is this ache in him, this Frank-sized cut out from his chest that feels a lot bigger than Frank is in real life, and nothing - not even music - can make that go away. He feels it constantly, whether he's working on a chorus or doing the dishes or sharing coffees with Mikey. At first it's a gaping wound, but it doesn't stay that way. It doesn't heal either, though; not per se. It just kind of stops bleeding, stops oozing. But that doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt like a motherfucker.

Gerard spends a lot of nights in bed staring at Frank's name in his phone, wanting more than anything to click on it, to hear Frank's voice. But he doesn't call. And he tries not to feel sad when Frank doesn't call either.

He ends up moving out of his house. The whole fucking place is an art history museum of him and Frank, and they never let anyone sleep in the Louvre. 

He moves in with Mikey. Mikey says he's going to help Gerard with the boxes, but he mostly walks around a sighs and looks sad puppy the entire time.

"What?" Gerard says finally, when he's sure that if his brother's sigh's get any more theatrical is brain is going to fucking break.

"Why don't you just talk to him?" he says in a rush, like he's been saving it. He's actually carrying something - an oversized box that he throws down in emphasis. Gerard winces before he sees that it's labeled as BEDDING.

Gerard puts down his own box - BOOKS A-F - and sits on top of it with a sigh of his own. The house is empty, now, and their conversation echoes. 

"I'm not talking to Frank because I don't deserve to," he says. It's the most succinct answer he can come up with.

"Frank doesn't think that."

Theres a pause and then he says, "That kind of proves it though, doesn't it?"

Mikey smiles sadly. "He has a show coming up. If you're this fucking in love with him, I think you should come."

"Who said I'm in love with Frank?"

"Every thing you _do_ says you're in love with Frank. Come the show."

Gerard loathes it when his brother is right. He shakes his head, but Mikey just raises an eyebrow like _oh, really?_.

Gerard is so fucked.

—

When Gerard was in college, he dated this girl that he was madly in love with, until he walked in on her fucking a science major. Well, okay, he still loved her after that, but he also hated her guts for breaking his heart. (Love is funny like that; how close in bed it can sleep to pure fucking _hate_.)

When he caught them, he quickly shut the door. He stood in the hallway freaking the fuck out for like, ten seconds before he was opening the door again. The thing about Gerard is that he's kind of a sadist when it comes to himself; it wasn't enough for him to know she was fucking someone else - he needed to know what the someone else looked like, how she sounded with him and if she looked different for him than she did for Gerard. Gerard is obsessed with vulgar details.

That's kind of what tonight is about. He's loitering, kicking around like fifteen year olds do at the mall, except he's outside this shitty bar off La Cienega called The Melrose, and Frank's new band is playing. Not _now_ , because it's really embarrassingly early, but they will be tonight. Gerard isn't going, he's really not. He just bought a ticket because he wanted to Frank's name in print like he had wanted to see his college girlfriend's back arch. He's tucking all his dumb red hair up under his beanie and going inside because he needs to see what the place is going to look like, but he's not going to Frank's show. He's really not - as far as Frank is concerned, anyways.

Gerard tries to look unassuming, but he gets so caught up with that that he forgets to give attention to where he's going and actually walks right into Mikey, who is ordering a round of beers at the bar. He tells Gerard the whole band - meaning Ray and Bob, so he could've just said their names - is right up front, crowding the stage to support Frank.

"I think I'll just, like. Hide in the back. I'm not here," Gerard says, waving a hand limply like it will explain.

Mikey wrinkles his nose. "But you are."

"Yes," Gerard says impatiently. "But if Frank knows that, he might think I still have feelings for him."

"But you _do_."

"But _he_ doesn't need to know that!"

Mikey throws up his hands in surrender. "You are a fucking idiot, Gerard. I love you, but you're really stupid, okay?"

Gerard doesn't need to be told either of those things, so he just pulls a sour face at his brother. Mikey ruffles his hair in an affectionate way and precariously picks up three beers. "You do _not_ tell," Gerard yells at Mikey's retreating back.

"Ok _ay_!"

"I'm serious!" Mikey shakes his head back and forth, and Gerard knows he would be getting the finger if Mikey had a free hand.

\---

Gerard is only like, eighteen days sober, but once an alcoholic always an alcoholic, and there are lots of situations where he wishes he still drank. This is one of them. This is the _king_ of them, actually - or the queen, maybe, because he feels likes this awkward situation is a sneaky mastermind that's actually in charge, not a puppet with a big chair. Gerard is bone-sober when Frank comes on the stage, and even though he hasn't had a drop since that night, he is seriously considering an exception. The sight of Frank makes him feel ill with want. He's skinny, so skinny, has shaved most of his hair off and he thinks he has a new tattoo on his neck. He steps up the microphone.

"Hi," he says. "I'm Frank Iero, and this is The Cellabration. Uh… Where do we belong? Anywhere but here." it takes a second for Gerard to realize that's a song title, and then Jarrod is counting them in and Frank is singing and Gerard might actually explode.

" _Someone I love threw me away but I don’t mind at all..._ " Frank starts off, and the rest of the set are songs that put a knife in Gerard's belly and twist it.

Gerard is a terrible human being. He thought he was helping Frank. He knew it would hurt, obviously, but he thought Frank would bounce back, because he'd seen him do it before. He thought Frank would pick up the pieces and make them into something beautiful and keep moving, keep creating, and become something better. But he can see that he was wrong. These words… They're too bleak. Gerard can't bear that Frank felt them deeply enough to write about them. 

Gerard fucked up. He needs to do something. Everything else turns white and fades into the background, and suddenly Gerard _needs to talk to Frank_. Nothing else matters.

"Hey, Gee - Woah. You okay, man?" It's Ray. Gerard feels sick and dizzy, but he nods.

"Cool. Well, we're gonna help Frank load out, but, I mean, you _really_ don't look good, man…" he continues, but Gerard waves him off. He's going. If Frank's there, he's going.

Gerard actually does feel pretty damn shitty, though, so he doesn't do a lot of the heavy lifting. Mostly he stands between the brick wall and the trailer, smoking nervously and chancing glances at the door, waiting for Frank.

Frank walks out with one hand gripping a beer bottle and the other slung around one of his guitarists that Gerard doesn't know. Frank is just walking, but there is so much energy vibrating through him that he gives the impression of bouncing. Even across the parking lot, Gerard can see how wide his grin is, pulling up both sides of his face in a way that would be unattractive, if he weren't Frank. He's yelling happily about something, probably the show, and everyone around him is laughing. Gerard's chest constricts like he hasn't seen Frank for years, even though he saw him sing his heart out a half hour ago. 

Gerard doesn't really know what he's going to do, because he's not actually helping, he's lurking, and what does one say when they're on a lurk. _Hi, thanks for noticing me?_ He's saved the agony because Frank spots him. He stops short, like he's run into a glass wall. Gerard sees the guitarist shoot him a concerned face, but Frank waves it away, not taking his eyes off Gerard. He shrugs away from his guitarist and beelines.

"You are about the last dude I expected here, man," Frank says when he's close enough, stepping into the shadows towards Gerard. His face is weirdly blank, like glass, reflecting the apologetic gaze Gerard trains on him. "I thought you would bring Linds. I mean, that's kind of a thing for you, right? Hanging out with people whose hearts you broke?"

"Frankie… I'm sorry, Frankie. I didn't mean to hurt you like this." It all comes out in a rush, like a breath he'd been holding.

Gerard thinks for a second that Frank's expression might soften into something human - that he might _understand_ , but he looks murderous. He stares until Gerard thinks there should be smoke coming out his ears. Abruptly - even for Frank - he twirls his beer like he's measuring how many sips he's got left. He shrugs, and then chugs the whole thing which such violence Gerard jerks a little bit. The way Frank is drinking is familiar, way too reminiscent of days when they all travelled in a van and were always fucked up and pretty much always wanted to kill themselves. Gerard fidgets uncomfortably until Frank wipes his mouth. He throws the bottle against the brick wall, close enough that when it breaks, pieces hit Gerard's jeans. A few people look over but no one makes a move towards them.

Gerard gapes at the broken bottle. It's a little thing, but all shattered over the dirty ground like that, it looks like a metaphor. Gerard looks up again and Frank is staring right at him, his eyes black and flashing. 

"How _dare you_ come to _my_ show and pull this - this _pity_ shit? Poor Frank, not eating. Poor Frank, with his new band playing at _bars_. You know what, Gee? Thanks a lot for coming and all, but don't fucking bother again. Seriously."

Frank brings the phrase _turned on his heel_ to life, but Gerard's reflexes are quick, too, even if it feels like he's thinking through sludge. He grabs Frank's elbow and yanks him back around. "Frankie, please. Please listen, I'm trying to tell you-"

"I _know_ Gerard. You did it because you care, you hurt me out of love, blah-blah-blah. I already fucking know, alright? So save your bullshit excuses, because they don't change the fact that you broke my heart and took my band and I'm fucking _pissed_ at you."

Frank looks at Gerard's hand on his arm and crinkles his face, like he's gotten garbage juice on himself instead of a touch he used to beg for. He tries to shake Gerard off, but Gerard holds on tighter.

"Gee," Frank says, low and dangerous. "Get the _fuck_ off me right now."

"Are you ever going to talk to me again?" Gerard says, before he can stop himself. It's fucking pathetic, but he doesn't care.

Frank just keeps staring, and Gerard thinks he's really going to pull away, but something breaks in his face. Gerard isn't sure where it starts, but some part of Frank's hard face twitches, and then the whole thing softens, and then he's kissing Gerard. It's not at all like they've ever kissed before - it's slow and soft but still hurts deeper than any rough, biting make-out they ever shared. It's sharp and sweet and when Frank pulls back he looks like himself - the version that loves Gerard, not the hard mask that's been throwing bitter remarks at him.

"You moved," Frank says, not a question. Gerard nods. Frank nods, like confirmation, and then swallows. His eyes burn a little hotter and he says, almost a whisper, "You _drank._ " The amount of emotion that bleeds in those two words makes Gerard's back hurt.

"In the past tense," he says back, as gentle as he can. "I did, one time. I go for walks now." He shrugs.

"I heard from Mikey," Frank says, like _I should have heard from you._

"I'm sorry," he mouths, not even audible, and then before he can stop himself: 

"I love you, Frankie."

Frank sighs in a long suffering way, but he doesn't move.

"I need you to make up your mind about that, Gerard. Because - and I'm only gonna say this shit once, so fucking _listen_ , okay? I need you to make up your mind about that because I'm still really in love with you. I'm _always_ in love with you, and I think you are with in love with me, too, but I need you to be sure. I need you to be in or out, Gerard. I can't like… You can't call me and come to my shows and tell me 'I love you' if you don't… If you don't want…" Frank trails off, and gives his head a shake like he's trying to clear it.

"Make up your mind, Gee."

Gerard closes his eyes so he can't see Frank's reaction and says, "I love the motherfuck out of you, Frank, but I'm a… revolver, like for roulette? Like, you _know_ I'm bad news, and you keep clicking. And I know it's all worked out so far, but just because you keep getting empty chambers doesn't mean there isn't a bullet in there somewhere. You keep saying you love me and you will go through all the shit with me, and I know you mean it. But how many times can you do that before you come away dirty, too? How can you expect me to do that to you, Frankie? How can I live with that? You are my _best fucking friend_ and I am so scared of fucking that up, Frank. I fuck _everything_ up." His voice is a hoarse whisper by the end, like they've been on the road for weeks.

"Gerard," Franks says extremely clearly, and from incredibly close. Gerard opens his eyes and Frank is _right there_ , his nose not even a quarter of an inch from his own. This close, Gerard can see Frank's freckles, the little scar above his left eyebrow from Bob's cymbal. His hands are vices on Gerard's shoulders, and Gerard can smell the stage-sweat on him, familiar like coffee brewing in the morning.

"Gerard, when you started the band - that's like, a suicide mission, right? Like, one in one thousand bands make it. Quitting school to be in a band was a crazy person thing to do, but you did it. Like, you knew you were gonna have to live in a van and be hungry and broke and sick and you still _did it_. Why?"

Gerard creases his brow, confused but willing to answer Frankie anything. "Because… Because I knew it was something special? I knew it was gonna work."

Frank looks at him like, _there ya go_. Very carefully, like he's building something and has to be delicate, he envelops Gerard's face, one hand at a time. He gets even closer, like that's even possible. His gaze darts back and forth between Gerard's eyes, his lips parted with the concentration. Finally, after an eternity of Gerard's heart banging around his middle section, Frank's face softens and he brushes his lips on Gerard's, soft like paper.

"I know this is something special. I know we are gonna work," Frank shrugs.

Gerard kisses him, and he's never going to fucking stop kissing him again, but then he hears scuffling feet and - and, well, it's the mark of how much time they've all spent together that Gerard can recognize the other three band members by their fucking _footsteps._

" _Oh!_ " squeaks Ray.

"Explination," demands Mikey, sounding careful about the situation.

"Idiots," Bob grunts. "Complete fucking _idiots_." From Bob, that's pretty much a bear hug.

Ray jumps in, "So did you… work it out? I mean, like. _You know._ Are you 'Frank and Gerard' or ' _FrankandGerard_?"

Frank looks up at Gerard, face so open and hopeful that Gerard feels like sobbing. The world feels off-kilter. Everything has changed so fast. He's spent the last months of his life miserable, trying to give Frank something better. But he realizes, now, how stupid that was. He and Frankie are tied together - probably have been since the first day they met - and what Gerard feels, Frankie feels, and vice versa. He's never going to give Frank happiness by sacrificing his own. Because that is how true fucking love works. He's only sorry it took him so long to learn that lesson.

"Gee?" Frankie asks, soft. He squeezes Gerard's hand, and Gerard grips back.

"The one where we sound like one word," Gerard clarifies, grinning at his friends.

"Sick," Bob groans, but Mikey and Ray whoop, high-fiving and then grabbing the rest of them in for a chaotic, messy hug.

"It's like my parents got back together," says Ray, whose parents are not divorced. Gerard appreciates the sentiment all the same.

Mikey wrinkles his nose, but it quickly smooths as he squeezes Gerard. "'Bout time you did something, big brother," he says into Gerard's ear, and when he pulls back they're wearing matching, broad grins.

While everyone else commiserates over the news, Gerard hauls Frankie back against him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and holding him tight to his chest.

"So, remember that thing about how you said you were only gonna say you loved me once?" he asks. Frank nods. "So uh… Did you mean that?"

Frank's eyes boggle. "Dude, did you hear the speech - or like any of the songs? Of _course_ I love you, you fuck."

"No, no. The part where you only say it once."

Frank looks very serious. He shifts a little; gets Gerard's hands away from his shoulders and intertwines them with his own. "I love you, Gerard Way. I'll tell you every fucking day."

Gerard grins so hard it hurts his face. And then he kisses Frank.

\---

Gerard has a dream that Frank forgives him, because Frank fucking loves him. He twists up in blankets with him and kisses each tattoo like he's greeting old friends - even the new ones, the ones that are his fault. They stay in bed for days, smoking and drinking coffee and kissing, and when they finally get up they call the band together, and Frank plays the songs he's been writing in secret, the ones that just didn't work for The Cellebration, and they all start figuring out how to make it work for MCR. Ray tries the same riff over and over again, playing with it, and Frank catches Gerard's eye across the room and smiles the special smile he keeps just for him.

More than punk rock, he mouths, and Gerard just about dies right there.

Then he wakes up, and real life is all of that, and even better.


End file.
